Technological Infrastructures

The first NACHIP Open Call is officially open to fund innovative solutions along the hydrogen value chain, with an application deadline of 3 February 2026. NACHIP (North Adriatic Clean Hydrogen Investment Platform) is a platform co-funded by the European Union through the I3 instrument, aimed at accelerating clean hydrogen-related technologies in the fields of production, mobility, and urban areas. The NACHIP call is dedicated to supporting mature technological solutions in the hydrogen sector, with particular focus on innovative products, services, or processes applicable across the hydrogen value chain. Selected projects must contribute to the development, integration, or demonstration of already validated technologies (high TRL), in line with the needs of the NACHIP pilot projects in clean hydrogen production, mobility, and urban applications. The call offers up to €60,000 to highly innovative SMEs or consortia of small enterprises, funding projects with a high level of technological maturity (Technology Readiness Level > 7). The total budget available for this first open call is €540,000, covering 100% of eligible costs through a cascade funding mechanism. Eligible applicants include SMEs active in hydrogen technologies, components, digital solutions, and other relevant fields, registered in eligible EU regions (including Friuli Venezia Giulia, Veneto, Lazio, Umbria, Slovenia, and Croatia). Proposals will be evaluated based on their strategic impact and their ability to address the technical needs of the NACHIP project and the five pilot projects foreseen under the programme. To learn more: Launch of the NACHIP Open Call for SMEs – Funding Innovative Hydrogen Solutions – NACHIP

With the kick-off meeting that began today and will conclude tomorrow, 27 November, NASCHA – North Adriatic Smart Communities Hydrogen Accelerator is officially launched. The new initiative aims to accelerate the development and adoption of renewable hydrogen-based technologies within the North Adriatic ecosystem. The European project, which will last 36 months, has a total value of approximately EUR 11 million, of which EUR 7.9 million are funded by the I3 – Interregional Innovation Investments Instrument. NASCHA represents the natural evolution and a major extension of the North Adriatic Hydrogen Valley (NAHV) initiative, inheriting its vision of an integrated, resilient and interregional hydrogen value chain. It further strengthens this vision through demonstration activities, scalability tools for the proposed solutions, and dedicated acceleration programmes for SMEs. The project, led by Area Science Park, brings together 20 public and private organisations from Italy (mainly Friuli Venezia Giulia), Slovenia and Croatia, representing the entire hydrogen value chain: research institutions, innovative SMEs, large companies, business support organisations, universities and local authorities. NASCHA aims to develop three Smart Communities of Practice and two pilot projects to advance solutions based on new technologies in the green hydrogen sector from Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6 to TRL 9, making them ready for the market and for investment. In addition to developing three Smart Communities of Practice (SCP) in the cities of Celje, Ajdovščina (Slovenia) and Cres (Croatia)—aimed at demonstrating the effectiveness of green hydrogen applications respectively in in urban areas, sustainable irrigation, and transport and mobility respectively through the integration of innovators, businesses, public administrations and research centres—the project also aims to strengthen the ecosystem for hydrogen production, storage and distribution across the North Adriatic territories. NASCHA indeed integrates and shares knowledge between highly innovative regions and less developed regions in the EU hydrogen value chains, contributing to the European Green Deal, the EU Hydrogen Strategy, and broader decarbonisation goals. “NASCHA contributes to accelerating the energy transition across the North Adriatic”, explains Alberto Soraci, project coordinator. “It aims to strengthen the hydrogen ecosystem by contributing to the European Green Deal. It also reinforces cross-border cooperation and the integration of technologies into key value chains such as transport and urban areas, ensuring long-term impact and enabling the replication of best practices by other regions”. One of the most innovative elements of the initiative is the allocation of dedicated funds for businesses: NASCHA will support at least 20 SMEs through cascade funding (up to EUR 60,000 each) and advanced business acceleration and investor readiness programmes. The project will also develop a set of tools designed to facilitate the adoption of the NASCHA model in other European Hydrogen Valleys, including standardised procedures, know-how for third-party selection, and matchmaking services for investors.   Project partners: Area Science Park (coordinator), META Group, ETRA, Italian Business Angels Network Association, Občina Ajdovščina, STEMwise, META Circularity, CTS H2, Grad CRES, OTRA, RRA PORIN, SIST, ECUBES, Inkubator, PATRIA, University of Zagreb – Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, Energetika, Institut Jožef Stefan, Mestna Občina Celje, INCOM. Co-financed through the I3 Instrument implemented by EISMEA.  

Area Science Park has significantly upgraded the hardware infrastructure and computing power of ORFEO, the Data Center that serves as a cornerstone of the organisation’s research and innovation ecosystem. Supported by the PNRR – Mission 4 “Education and Research”, the Data Center expansion marks a major step forward in computing performance and in the delivery of advanced storage and data management services for scientific applications in numerical simulation and artificial intelligence.   A more powerful and sustainable Data Center The €3 million investment through PNRR funds has enabled the creation of a new 125 kW server room equipped with high-efficiency cooling systems, reducing both the carbon footprint and operational costs. Computing capacity has been enhanced with new servers for simulations and predictive modelling, supported by three AI nodes, each with eight state-of-the-art GPU accelerators. These resources make it possible to train large language models, run computer vision applications, and analyse complex datasets in a fraction of the time. Internal interconnections have been upgraded with ultra-low-latency, high-speed links to ensure smooth data flow even under heavy workloads. Storage capacity has been increased by several petabytes, with the addition of an ultra-fast solid-state memory layer for “hot” datasets, further improving performance and efficiency. “ORFEO represents a strategic investment for Area Science Park, enabling the full operation of the organisation’s research and technological infrastructures,” explained President Caterina Petrillo. “It manages the entire data lifecycle from our genomics and virology research laboratories, materials microscopy, and soon, from the green energy production demonstrator. ORFEO also provides AI and HPC access and services to companies, driving digital transformation and business competitiveness in coordination with the regional data center network. To sustain excellence and the quality of our data science investments, Area Science Park has developed an advanced training programme for young researchers and technologists”.   A key infrastructure for scientific research As the digital core of Area Science Park’s research activities, ORFEO supports advanced projects in artificial intelligence, materials science, computational biology, and genomics. Thanks to its high-performance architecture, the Data Center enables researchers to run complex simulations, train large-scale machine learning models, and analyse massive amounts of scientific data in a reproducible and traceable way. The infrastructure also powers a broad research ecosystem focused on AI model interpretability and the energy sustainability of computational processes. ORFEO hosts automated pipelines integrating high-performance and cloud computing, ensuring data interoperability and faster analysis. Its evolution strengthens collaborations with universities, research institutions, and national and European infrastructures, consolidating Area Science Park’s role as a hub for computational research and digital innovation.   An ally for digital business transformation Beyond supporting scientific research, ORFEO is a strategic asset for enterprises seeking to innovate through high-performance computing and artificial intelligence. Area Science Park provides consulting services, feasibility studies, and Proof of Concept projects to facilitate the adoption of advanced digital solutions—from numerical simulation to data science—within a secure, high-performance environment.   ORFEO is Area Science Park’s high-performance computing and artificial intelligence Data Center, designed to support scientific research and industrial innovation. Established in 2020 to serve the life sciences, it now functions as a cross-sector platform integrating HPC, AI, and big data management. It enables the training of advanced models, digital twin simulations, and FAIR-compliant data repositories linked to the organisation’s experimental laboratories. The infrastructure provides services in Infrastructure, Platform, and Software as a Service (IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS) modes, with ready-to-use environments and tools for data science and HPC. The cluster delivers millions of computing hours annually, is connected to national research backbones (LightNet, GARR), and follows open standards to ensure interoperability and security. Technical management is entrusted to the Data Engineering Laboratory (LADE), which brings together expertise in AI, data engineering, and high-performance computing.

The Annual Briefing of NAHV, the transnational initiative funded by the Clean Hydrogen Partnership through the Horizon Europe program, was held at the Urban Center of Trieste. The FVG Region is one of the institutional partners of the initiative together with the Croatian Ministry for Economy and Sustainable Development (MINGO) and the Slovenian Ministry for Environment and Energy. The second Annual Meeting of the NAHV Consortium hosted almost 100 delegates representing 37 project partners from Croatia, Slovenia and Italy. Jerneja Sedlar, NAHV Coordinator, Head of HSE’s Development and Investment Department, described the progress made in particular at the level of industrial test benches. Overall, 17 ‘Testbed’ industrial projects are being developed in different locations in all three partner countries, supported by a number of cross-cutting actions. In the final year of the NAHV Horizon Europe project, 2029, major industry players from all three countries aim to produce up to 5,000 tonnes of renewable hydrogen per year from renewable energy sources, intended for energy storage, distribution and use. It is expected that around 20% of the renewable hydrogen produced will be traded between participating countries, thus creating a primary regional market for hydrogen. The implementation of this ambitious initiative aims to facilitate the uptake of hydrogen-related solutions and enable actors in the emerging hydrogen ecosystem of the Northern Adriatic to independently produce, transmit, store and use renewable hydrogen, as well as promote further adoption in the future. The consortium prepared a comprehensive overview of 17 industrial pilots in the second edition of the NAHV Testbed Catalogue, which is available on the NAHV website.   Training of future professionals and experts   A number of education-related activities were aimed at promoting the training of future professionals and experts in the field of hydrogen technologies with the aim of ensuring interdisciplinary education covering science, technology, engineering and mathematics, as well as the financial and social aspects of hydrogen technologies. These activities are coordinated by the University of Rijeka with the participation of the Universities of Ljubljana and Trieste and the partners GITONE, ECUBES and META Circularity. The Consortium has started the preparation of vocational training programs with the support of the FVG Regional Administration and the Slovenian and Croatian ministries and other partners, to be financed through the European Social Fund. The development of micro-credentials for professionals in the reskilling and upskilling sector will be launched in the 2025-26 school year in collaboration between the universities involved.   The activities of the Stakeholder Advisory Forum (SAF)   Alberto Soraci from Area Science Park, who is the Coordinator of the Stakeholder Advisory Forum (SAF), briefly presented the purpose and functioning of this body, which aims to involve external partners in the initiative for consultation, implementation support and to seize the potential additional opportunities that emerge through the life of the project. “The preparatory activities conducted by Area Science Park for the launch of the NAHV AISBL, a non-profit association that will be established under Belgian law, have now advanced and are coming to an end,” said Stephen Taylor, strategic coordinator of the NAHV Joint Working Group, a governance body of the NAHV initiative. The objective of the NAHV AISBL is to ensure the long-term sustainability of the initiative’s results and their impact beyond the duration of the NAHV Horizon Europe project. This structure, which is open to NAHV partners and other interested stakeholders, can complement other initiatives as well. After the Northern Adriatic Clean Hydrogen Investment Platform (NACHIP), launched in autumn 2024, two other such initiatives have received funding from the EU, H2Ready and NASCHA. All these projects received support from the NAHV Joint Working Group in the application phase and plan to integrate with the NAHV SPV at the end of their lifecycle. H2Ready is a bilateral Interreg Italy-Slovenia initiative to which 700 thousand euros of funding have been allocated to address the key challenge of the energy transition by involving municipalities in the development and implementation of hydrogen solutions. The project aims to strengthen the involvement of municipalities in the energy transition, leveraging their key potential as intermediaries between energy needs, infrastructure development and social innovation. In a consortium H2READY of 6 partners led by GOLEA, a regional development agency based in Nova Gorica, it integrates the public sector as a key player in ensuring a critical mass demand for hydrogen. The North Adriatic Smart Communities Hydrogen Accelerator (NASCHA), led by Area Science Park , aims to accelerate transnational innovation in the Northern Adriatic hydrogen ecosystem, validating and demonstrating renewable hydrogen technologies in Croatia, Slovenia and Friuli-Venezia Giulia through pilot solutions, improving investor readiness through three Smart Communities of Practice, two pilot projects across hydrogen storage and retail, scalable across communities. NASCHA is based on the North Adriatic Hydrogen Valley (NAHV) and NACHIP initiatives, aimed at the value chains of transport and mobility, urban and agricultural areas. Similar to NACHIP, NASCHA received €7.9 million in funding from the Interregional Innovation Investments (I3) facility under the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), managed by the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA). Photo credit: Mariia Bortiakova

Area Science Park has launched a call for applications for the awarding of six scholarships aimed at university students working on their master’s degree thesis within the scope of the project “Support for the Diagnosis of Rare Diseases through Artificial Intelligence”. The project aims to develop innovative tools for early identification of rare diseases through the automated analysis of clinical data. The scholarships, which last six months and are renewable for an additional semester, will support the training of university students during the completion of their master’s degree thesis in one of the following subject areas: Multimodal modelling with AI, to distinguish normal conditions from pathological ones through advanced algorithms. Management and anonymisation of clinical databases (Electronic Health Records – EHR), with focus on interoperability and data security. Development of a digital ecosystem for clinical data research, integrated with the ORFEO data center. The selected candidates will carry out their research activities at the Area Science Park Data Engineering Laboratory (LADE) and will be able to access an advanced technological ecosystem, including the Orfeo computing platform. To apply, students must be enrolled in a master’s degree programme in related fields and must submit their application via certified email (PEC) by 11.59 pm on 16 March 2025. Selection will be based on the evaluation of qualifications and an interview. Further details and the full call for applications are available here.